“Look you, Levy,” said he, with forced composure—“you
hate me—why, I know not. I have never injured you—never avenged the inexpiable wrong you did me.”
“Wrong!—you a man of the world! Wrong! Call it so if you will then,” he added shrinkingly, for Audley’s brow grew terrible. “But have I not atoned it? Would you ever have lived in this palace, and ruled this country as one of the most influential of its ministers, but for my management—my whispers to the wealthy Miss Leslie? Come, but for me what would you have been—perhaps a beggar?”
“What shall I be now if I live? Then I should not have been a beggar; poor perhaps in money, but rich—rich in all that now leaves my life bankrupt. Gold has not thriven with me; how should it. And this fortune—it has passed for the main part into your hands. Be patient, you will have it all ere long. But there is one man in the world who has loved me from a boy, and woe to you if ever he learn that he has the right to despise me!”
“Egerton, my good fellow,” said Levy, with great composure, “you need not threaten me, for what interest can I possibly have in tale-telling to Lord L’Estrange? As to hating you—pooh! You snub me in private, you cut me in public, you refuse to come to my dinners, you’ll not ask me to your own; still there is no man I like better, nor would more willingly serve. When do you want the £5000?”
“Perhaps in one month, perhaps not for three or four. Let it be ready when required.”
“Enough; depend on it. Have you any other commands?”
“None.”
“I will take my leave, then. By the by, what do you suppose the Hazeldean rental is worth—net?”
“I don’t know nor care. You have no designs upon that, too?”